Bosses

There is going on some kind of inspiration-challenge in blog-land, asking to write about 3 bosses you have had in your life. Or your 3 worst purchases. Or 3 holidays, or 3 shameful happenings, etc … Well, you get it.

Suddenly I realised that my first boss, as well as my latest boss, both were my fathers in law. However, these were different jobs and different fathers in law. In both cases I caught their sons earlier than the jobs. So you can say I got my jobs via the mattresses.
My first job was in the school holidays in summer at an insurance company. I had no clue what to do at that company and also my colleagues had no idea what to do with that 15 years old kid. Probably they thought: “Maybe she will disappear if we no pay attention. We are too busy to entertain her.”
I remember I got tiny chores that I had done in 10 minutes, like for example; putting stamps on 10 envelopes … And then I had to disturb the older guys again with the same question: “What needs to be done now?”. More and more I started to generate for this recurrent question and eventually I didn’t repeat it anymore. I found myself starting to hide. In the kitchenette staring to the coffee machine, or half into the office supplies storage gazing to the dust.

The best memory of that summer was the joy on my bike at the end of the last day. I can’t remember whether I ‘forced a last day’ or eventually took my bag and disappeared. Silently, quickly and too embarrassed to say goodbye.

My second job was cleaner in the hospital for a few weeks. The most intense memory was the horrible smell of centrifuged blood in the laboratories. That’s needed to separate (and then store) the ‘ingredients’ of donor blood, but since that time I disgust the smell of blood if passing a butcher.

1987: My first REAL office job. Here I’m the red one.

1983: Dishwasher in a lunchroom. I’m the blue one, between the 2 red ones.

Then I went to a cosmetics factory. Standing at the assembly line. The work consisted of freshly poured lipsticks keeping in a flame for a few seconds so they got their shine. After a few days I discovered that a large number of workers were brought with a special van from the house of the mentally challenged. Maybe that was the explanation of the difficult connection I experienced in the canteen. They didn’t allow me to sit beside them, because every seat was ‘discussed’ already, what was made clear by a pointed look.
More days later, I found out there was a separate table for temporary workers …